Quack noun 1. The cry of the duck, or a sound in imitation of it; a hoarse, quacking noise. Chaucer. 2. [ Confer Quacksalver .] A boastful pretender to medical skill; an empiric; an ignorant practitioner. 3. Hence, one who boastfully pretends to skill or knowledge of any kind not possessed; a charlatan.

Quacks political; quacks scientific, academical.

Carlyle.

Quack adjective Pertaining to or characterized by, boasting and pretension; used by quacks; pretending to cure diseases; as, a quack medicine; a quack doctor.

Quacksalver noun [ Dutch kwakzalver ; confer kwakzalven to quack or boast of one's salves. See Quack , Salve , noun ] One who boasts of his skill in medicines and salves, or of the efficacy of his prescriptions; a charlatan; a quack; a mountebank. [ Obsolete] Burton.

Quadra noun ; plural Quadræ . [ Latin , a square, the socle, a platband, a fillet.] (Architecture) (a) The plinth, or lowest member, of any pedestal, podium, water table, or the like. (b) A fillet, or listel.

Quadrable adjective [ See Quadrate .] (Math.) That may be sqyared, or reduced to an equivalent square; -- said of a surface when the area limited by a curve can be exactly found, and expressed in a finite number of algebraic terms.

Quadragesimals noun plural Offerings formerly made to the mother church of a diocese on Mid- Lent Sunday.

Quadrangle noun [ French, from Latin quadrangulum ; quattuor four + angulus an angle. See Four , and Angle a corner.] 1. (Geom.) A plane figure having four angles, and consequently four sides; any figure having four angles. 2. A square or quadrangular space or inclosure, such a space or court surrounded by buildings, esp. such a court in a college or public school in England.

Quadrans noun ; plural Quadrantes . [ Latin ] 1. (Rom. Antiq.) A fourth part of the coin called an as. See 3d As, 2. 2. The fourth of a penny; a farthing. See Cur .

Quadrant noun [ Latin quadrans , -antis , a fourth part, a fourth of a whole, from quattuor four: confer French quadrant , cadran . See Four , and confer Cadrans .] 1. The fourth part; the quarter. [ Obsolete] Sir T. Browne. 2. (Geom.) The quarter of a circle, or of the circumference of a circle, an arc of 90Â°, or one subtending a right angle at the center. 3. (Anal. (Geom.) One of the four parts into which a plane is divided by the coördinate axes. The upper right-hand part is the first quadrant ; the upper left-hand part the second ; the lower left-hand part the third ; and the lower right-hand part the fourth quadrant . 4. An instrument for measuring altitudes, variously constructed and mounted for different specific uses in astronomy, surveying, gunnery, etc., consisting commonly of a graduated arc of 90Â°, with an index or vernier, and either plain or telescopic sights, and usually having a plumb line or spirit level for fixing the vertical or horizontal direction.

Gunner's quadrant , an instrument consisting of a graduated limb, with a plumb line or spirit level, and an arm by which it is applied to a cannon or mortar in adjusting it to the elevation required for attaining the desired range. --

Hadley's quadrant , a hand instrument used chiefly at sea to measure the altitude of the sun or other celestial body in ascertaining the vessel's position. It consists of a frame in the form of an octant having a graduated scale upon its arc, and an index arm, or alidade pivoted at its apex. Mirrors, called the index glass and the horizon glass, are fixed one upon the index arm and the other upon one side of the frame, respectively. When the instrument is held upright, the index arm may be swung so that the index glass will reflect an image of the sun upon the horizon glass, and when the reflected image of the sun coincides, to the observer's eye, with the horizon as seen directly through an opening at the side of the horizon glass, the index shows the sun's altitude upon the scale; -- more properly, but less commonly, called an octant . --

Quadrant of altitude , an appendage of the artificial globe, consisting of a slip of brass of the length of a quadrant of one of the great circles of the globe, and graduated. It may be fitted to the meridian, and being movable round to all points of the horizon, serves as a scale in measuring altitudes, azimuths, etc.

Quadrantal adjective [ Latin quadrantalis containing the fourth fourth part of a measure.] (Geom.) Of or pertaining to a quadrant; also, included in the fourth part of a circle; as, quadrantal space.

Quadrantal triangle , a spherical triangle having one side equal to a quadrant or arc of 90Â°. --

Quadrantal versor , a versor that expresses rotation through one right angle.

Quadrantal noun [ Latin ] 1. (Rom. Antiq.) A cubical vessel containing a Roman cubic foot, each side being a Roman square foot; -- used as a measure. 2. A cube. [ R.]

Quadrat noun [ French quadrat , cadrat . See Quadrate .] 1. (Print.) A block of type metal lower than the letters, -- used in spacing and in blank lines. [ Abbrev. quad.] 2. An old instrument used for taking altitudes; -- called also geometrical square , and line of shadows .

Quadrate adjective [ Latin quadratus squared, past participle of quadrare to make four-cornered, to make square, to square, to fit, suit, from quadrus square, quattuor four. See Quadrant , and confer Quadrat , Quarry an arrow, Square .] 1. Having four equal sides, the opposite sides parallel, and four right angles; square.

Quadrate bone (Anat.) , a bone between the base of the lower jaw and the skull in most vertebrates below the mammals. In reptiles and birds it articulates the lower jaw with the skull; in mammals it is represented by the malleus or incus.

Quadrate noun [ Latin quadratum . See Quadrate , adjective ] 1. (Geom.) A plane surface with four equal sides and four right angles; a square; hence, figuratively, anything having the outline of a square.

At which command, the powers militant That stood for heaven, in mighty quadrate joined.

Milton. 2. (Astrol.) An aspect of the heavenly bodies in which they are distant from each other 90Â°, or the quarter of a circle; quartile. See the Note under Aspect , 6. 3. (Anat.) The quadrate bone.

Quadratic adjective [ Confer French quadratique .] 1. Of or pertaining to a square, or to squares; resembling a quadrate, or square; square. 2. (Crystallog.) Tetragonal. 3. (Alg.) Pertaining to terms of the second degree; as, a quadratic equation, in which the highest power of the unknown quantity is a square.

Quadratics noun (Alg.) That branch of algebra which treats of quadratic equations.

Quadratojugal adjective (Anat.) (a) Of or pertaining to the quadrate and jugal bones. (b) Of or pertaining to the quadratojugal bone. -- noun The quadratojugal bone.

Quadratojugal bone (Anat.) , a bone at the base of the lower jaw in many animals.

Quadratrix noun ; plural -trixes , or -trices . [ New Latin ] (Geom.) A curve made use of in the quadrature of other curves; as the quadratrix , of Dinostratus, or of Tschirnhausen.

Quadrature noun [ Latin quadratura : confer French quadrature . See Quadrate , adjective ] 1. (Math.) The act of squaring; the finding of a square having the same area as some given curvilinear figure; as, the quadrature of a circle; the operation of finding an expression for the area of a figure bounded wholly or in part by a curved line, as by a curve, two ordinates, and the axis of abscissas. 2. A quadrate; a square. Milton. 3. (Integral Calculus) The integral used in obtaining the area bounded by a curve; hence, the definite integral of the product of any function of one variable into the differential of that variable. 4. (Astron.) The position of one heavenly body in respect to another when distant from it 90Â°, or a quarter of a circle, as the moon when at an equal distance from the points of conjunction and opposition.

Quadrature of the moon (Astron.) , the position of the moon when one half of the disk is illuminated. --

Quadrature of an orbit (Astron.) , a point in an orbit which is at either extremity of the latus rectum drawn through the empty focus of the orbit.

Quadrennial adjective [ Latin quadriennium a space of four years; quattuor four + annus year; confer Latin quadriennis . See Quadrate , and Annual .] 1. Comprising four years; as, a quadrennial period. 2. Occurring once in four years, or at the end of every four years; as, quadrennial games.

Quadrennially adverb Once in four years.

Quadrennium noun [ New Latin See Quadrennial .] A space or period of four years.

Quadri- [ Latin , from quattuor four. See Four .] A combining form meaning four , four times , fourfold ; as, quadri capsular, having four capsules.

Quadric noun (a) (Alg.) A quantic of the second degree. See Quantic . (b) (Geom.) A surface whose equation in three variables is of the second degree. Spheres, spheroids, ellipsoids, paraboloids, hyperboloids, also cones and cylinders with circular bases, are quadrics.

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